Montfort (addressing the old man, only one of whose eyes was put out)—"You may now serve as the guide for these sinners. They may now be unpinioned. Let them consecrate the rest of their lives to repentance!"
Alyx of Montmorency (sadly to her husband)—"Alas! The punishments that the stiff-neckedness of these wretches compels us to inflict upon them are horrible—but the Church so orders it."
The Provost (stepping to the foot of the balcony and addressing Montfort)—"Seigneur, shall the pyre be lighted?"
Montfort—"Be quick about it! Let the pyre be lighted immediately to burn the other heretics alive."
Abbot Reynier (in a resonant voice)—"Bring the other heretics forth! The terrestrial hell shall be to them the vestibule of the eternal hell."
Again the gate that communicates with the esplanade is thrown open. Pricked in the back by the lances of the soldiers behind them, a crowd of men, women and children of all ages issues from the dungeon with pinioned hands. The soldiers rank themselves in a cordon along the edge of the esplanade, and with the points of their lowered lances drive the human mass of prisoners into a burning fosse.
Among the last victims to issue from the dungeon are Karvel the Perfect, his wife Morise, the Lady of Lavaur and her son. Accident threw the four together at this supreme moment. Giraude is clad in black, her arms are pinioned at her back; so are Aloys's, who has received a severe wound on his left shoulder, seeing that, despite his tender years, he insisted upon fighting at his uncle's side during the siege. Giraude does not take her eyes from her son. The distracted mother's angelic features betray the horror which, little recking her own fate, she feels at the atrocious death that awaits her son. The latter guesses his mother's preoccupation, and endeavors to calm her with a smile. Karvel and his wife march with a firm step and serene front. Nevertheless, at the sight of the shocking spectacle that presents itself to him the instant he steps upon the esplanade, the Perfect stops short and shudders with horror. On the left are twenty-four gibbets awaiting their victims with arms outstretched; on the right, the prostrate bodies of those, who, too weak to withstand the torture of "blinding," are now dead or dying: they lie strewn around the foot of the scaffold; finally, a little further away from the gibbets and corpses, lambent flames rise from the pit, a vast brazier whose fires are kept alive with the fuel furnished by the flesh, the bones and the entrails of the heretics. From the midst of that burning heap of human remains some tokens of life are still visible. Arms, limbs and chests quiver and writhe convulsively; here and there a head is seen with hair aflame and features singed. Oh! son of Joel, no human pen could depict to you the aspect of these beings in the throes of such a death.
Such is the spectacle that presents itself to Karvel and his wife. The Perfect stops, and turns to the balcony where Montfort, his wife, the mitred abbots, the noble dukes, counts and knights are ranked in state. He contemplates the assemblage for an instant, and, a prophetic inspiration lighting his face, cries out aloud:
"Oh, ye priests of Rome! Verily, verily I say unto you the evangelical faith has departed from your midst; to-day it dwells among those whom you style heretics, and there it will dwell imperishable as truth! You have the might—the might—ephemeral as that pyre that, this very evening, will be but a heap of ashes!"
Abbot Reynier (jumps up furious)—"Tear out that heretic's tongue!"